Gardening In LA
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Garden Coaching
    • Speaking
    • Photography
    • Writing >
      • List of Articles
  • Blog
  • News
  • Monthly Tips
    • January
    • February
    • March
    • April
    • May
    • June
    • July
    • August
    • September
    • October
    • November
    • December
  • Events
    • Submit Your Garden Events
    • Botanical Gardens' and Other Organizations' Garden Events
  • Jobs
  • Web Links
  • Newsletter

Depth-of-Winter Planting – Bareroot and Seeds

1/21/2018

3 Comments

 
Picture
Self-sown sweet peas from last year remind me to sow edible peas and more sweet peas immediately.
Picture
Artichoke seedlings have different foliage - young leaves have no cuts, and older leaves look "true" to adult plants.
Picture
Asparagus harvest begins in third year, when stalks are the size of your middle finger. Leave smaller ones to feed the plant for its 15-to-20-year life.
Picture
Boysenberry tips root easily when they touch the soil. Ready for replanting!
Picture
Grape cuttings potted up to root.
Picture
Internet illustration of planting roses.
Picture
Just-planted fruit tree. Note wide hole with outer berm and filled with manure and mulch and coffee grounds following filling with water three times to make sure entire prospective rootzone is moist.
Picture
Lettuce harvest. Note that outer leaves are harvested, leaving smallest ones to continue growing. Milk containers will be placed over each plant to protect from munching critters (and frost if it happens).
Picture
Pink nerine starts months of blooms.
Picture
Paperwhites are blooming when they're supposed to, despite weird weather - what a concept!
Picture
Yellow bulbine blooms for 11 months on elongated stems.
Picture
First-blooming alstroemeria.
Picture
Sunflowers continuing blooming from last Spring.
Picture
Sky-blue salvia.
Picture
Cuphea has been blooming since October, perfect for Halloween with its batface!
Picture
Red-purple iochroma, beloved by hummingbirds.
Picture
Beautiful shaded rose.
Picture
Reblooming yellow bearded iris.
Picture
Delicately-colored clivia.
Picture
Deep purple undersides and pale pink blooms of Oxalis triangularis.
Picture
First flush of camellia color.
​     Even though our weather is milder than past Springs, it’s still January and theoretically Winter, with its low light and nighttime chill that makes plants grow so slowly. So it’s time to plant bareroot plants – artichokes, asparagus, grapes, berry vines, fruit trees – and seeds like lettuce, spinach, chard, tatsoi, bok choy, parsley, cilantro, peas and sweet peas. 
       I’d never gotten around to planting edible pea and sweet pea seeds before the holidays, but the self-sown sweet peas from last year that are sprouting up remind me to do it now along with planting my 4 new bareroot fruit trees.
 
Peas and Sweet Peas
     My husband likes to “do the work” of shelling his peas, so I sow a selection of varieties for him since he doesn’t seem to prefer one over the other.
     I, however, want to get as much food value as possible from what I grow, so I rely on Super Sugar Snap – the tall type that you eat the entire pod.  Although I’ve also grown the dwarf versions of Sugar Ann and Sugar Daddy in the past, I always come back to the tall ones that require trellising for both the quantity and size of peas, their flavor, and the length of their bearing period. 
     I sow the sweet peas on the east-facing side of the trellis which is less accessible, and the edible peas on the three remaining more-accessible sides. This is so I can more easily harvest the edible peas every day for the three-to-four weeks they’re bearing.  The sweet peas need picking only every third day or so.
   Despite the fact that the sweet pea pods are poisonous, they’re easy to distinguish from the edible pods when they’re planted and intertwined together.  Sweet pea pods are smaller and hairy and slightly gray-green, whereas edible pea pods are larger and smooth and bright clear green.
     I leave my double-decker trellis up year ‘round – for bean vines or cucumbers or even squash during summer.
 
Artichoke
     Dig a lot of compost and manure into the soil, and set artichoke roots with buds or shoots just above the soil line, spaced two feet apart.  Water them in.  When new growth emerges, deeply soak the area once a week.  Plants may last for 15-20 years, so provide them with lots of manure as mulch every year.
 
Asparagus
     Asparagus will grow and produce satisfactorily in partially-shaded areas such as next to a fence or a building, especially if the plants receive morning sun.
     Dig a lot of compost and manure into the soil, and set roots at least six inches deep and a foot apart. Cover them with a fluffy mix of soil, manure, or other organic mulch, and water in well.  
     Refrain from harvesting asparagus until the plant's third season, to enable the plant to gain strength. When you do harvest, cut only a few stalks that are the width of your middle finger to not stress the plant by leaving too few stalks to continue growing and feeding the rootsystem for future crops.
 
Berry Vines
     Tips from last year's berry canes should be well-rooted. Cut off the vine above the third node from the rooted tip and plant.
 
Grapes
     Make cuttings of branches with three or four nodes, distinguishing the root-end with a straight-across cut, and the foliage-end with an angled cut so you know which end to insert into potting mix for rooting.
 
Roses
     When transplanting roses, add humus and potash to the potting soil, but be spare with nitrogen fertilizers, as these hasten new foliage which may be damaged by late frosts.  Apply the nitrogen fertilizers a month or so after foliage has unfurled.
 
Bareroot Fruit Trees
     I added four new fruit trees to my garden.
Fuji Apple is listed as needing more chill hours that my garden provides, but I don’t really like the low-chill varieties I’ve tasted so am willing to experiment.  I chose a planting location that’s shaded in the early mornings to hopefully keep its roots chilly longer year ‘round and perhaps foster better adaptation to my garden.
Royal Lee Cherry will pair with my Minnie Royal so they pollinate each other.  These varieties are supposed to do well in warmer climates.
Double Delight Nectarine is repeatedly voted as best flavored in Dave Wilson Nursery taste tests.
Jiro Persimmon, another Fuyu type to my existing 50-year-old tree will hopefully offset the old tree’s alternate bearing and ultimately take over as my main producer once the old one gets too old to produce much.
 
How to Buy and Plant
    Buy bareroot trees that have well-developed fibrous root systems, a single well-shaped leader, several side branches around the trunk, and no serious bark injury. Avoid trees with circling or tangled roots.
     Side branches should be smaller than the trunk and growing from it at angles between horizontal and 45 degrees.
     Dig the planting hole at least two feet wide but only as deep as the container or roots.  Loosen soil but don't add compost or manure – you want the tree roots to extend out into the native soil, and adding organic matter will make it more of a container that roots don’t want to leave. 
     Create a berm about three feet wide around the tree, and fill with water three times to make sure that the soil is thoroughly saturated throughout the prospective root zone. 
     Apply manure and compost as mulch on top of the soil and out beyond the drip line so its nutrients will “melt” into the broad expanse of soil with every rain. 
 
Harvesting
     Lots of goodies are coming out of the garden – four colors and shapes of leaf lettuce, two sizes of spinach, tatsoi, chard (still producing from last year), parsley, cilantro, and the first broccoli headlets. 
     Removing that first main broccoli head fosters side shoots to keep us in bitesize pieces through the beginning of summer heat.
     When harvests of broccoli or chard or tatsoi or other greens become greater than we can eat fresh immediately, I steam or saute up a whole batch with garlic, leeks or onions, and mushrooms, freezing it in meal-size portions for later use in soups, quiches or whatever.
3 Comments

Happy Gardening New Year!

1/2/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
A real garden float highlighting fresh produce and community gardening! Internet photo.
Picture
Caterpillars are the good and bad boys in the garden. Internet photo.
Picture
Lots of posies, too. Internet photo.
Picture
Milk cartons protecting recently transplanted lettuce. To harvest, I remove the carton, harvest leaving smallest inner leaves, water, and replace the cartons for protection from munching critters.
Picture
That poor lettuce got munched overnight, without its milk-carton protection.
Picture
Placement when transplanting to accommodate mature height and harvesting frequency: tatsoi up front for frequent harvesting, then celery in center, and broccoli raab at rear. Buried 5-gallon buckets provide deep watering besides soaker hose wound throughout bed.
Picture
Harvesting tatsoi is similar to lettuce and chard -- outermost too-mature leaves go to the compost pile, edible next leaves harvested, and few inner leaves left to continue developing.
Picture
"Buttoning" cauliflower was stressed into creating its head too soon. Delicious but tiny. Pull the entire plant, since it won't get any larger or produce any more heads.
Picture
Salvia canariensis very "thoughtfully" sends up new folliage shoots at base of branches, so you'll feel confident to prune that low on the plant. Within a couple of weeks, the fresh new foliage will provide an attractive mound as it grows into its 5-foot mature height.
Picture
Brightly colored nasturtiums arise from the mulch, self-sown from last year's plants.
Picture
Short alstroemeria starts blooming.
    Weren’t the Rose Parade floats exquisite?  I’m always impressed with the variety of “natural” materials used to decorate them. 
        Remembering my senior year in high school (Yay, John Muir!) when our English class (Yay, Mr. Eberhart!) spent the whole last day doing the decorating in the cold float barns.  In those days, the truly cold temperatures of the season served the cut flowers well, keeping them spritely as we glued them on so they’d be more likely to still be perky throughout the next day’s sunniness on their way traveling down the parade route.
   That’s when I first became aware of the requirement that all decoration materials be natural, and the consequent strange pairing of what was used to become what – besides whole flowers, there were seeds and buds, leaves and individual petals, whole and ground herbs and spices.  Whatever form they came in and however they were manipulated to become faces or bodies or backgrounds, they hardly ever portrayed what they really were like orchids becoming orchids.  A real transmutation!  I still marvel at the lists of ingredients.
         This fascination makes a trip to see the floats for the couple of days after the parade even more interesting. 
 
     So what’s happening during our current “spring” that should be winter?
 
Lettuce and Tatsoi
      The lettuce and tatsoi that I transplanted a couple of weeks ago are protected by milk cartons with their bottoms cut off.  When I’d installed them, I’d intended them to provide frost protection.  But, as you know the weather warmed up to the mid-80s during the daytimes and mid-50s during evenings, so frost was a moot point. 
    As it turned out, those coverings became protection from munching critters.  When the foliage crowded the containers, I removed a couple of them and harvested the outer leaves.  But, the next evening I again visited the bed and found those plants munched down to their bases.  In the hopes of the plants recouperating, I watered the bed and replaced the containers.  Good thing I hadn’t removed more of them!
     Yesterday afternoon, I harvested the rest of the plants, leaving the two or three smallest interior leaves to continue growing, watered the bed, and replaced the containers. 
 
Beets and Celery
     Transplanted several weeks ago, they’re doing fine, just appreciating watering to keep the soil moist but draining well.
 
Broccoli and Cauliflower
     I’d removed the milk containers when the foliage peaked out the top hole, and watered the bed.  The foliage was crumpled for a day or so but straightened itself out fine when it could grow unimpeded. 
     Three of the cauliflowers “buttoned up”, forming one-inch-wide heads, so I harvested them.  Cauliflower is notorious for stressing out in this manner, and undoubtedly the sudden 80+-degree heat caused it.  Hopefully the others from that 6-pack won’t suffer the same fate.  Perfectly bite-sized and yummy, but definitely a lost opportunity to develop full-sized heads.
 
Planting Dormant Deciduous Fruit Trees
     I’ve purchased three new trees – Royal Lee Cherry to pair with my Minnie Royal (the two need each other for better pollination), Fuji apple, and Double Delight nectarine. 
     I’ve kept them in as shady spot as I have until I can get them planted so they’ll stay as dormant as possible until then.
 
Pruning Perennials and Roses
     Prune perennials down to the lowest several nodes on existing branches.  Salvias are especially helpful in indicating where to do this since they’re already pushing new foliage.  With this warm weather, they’ll become attractive mounds of fresh foliage within a couple of weeks.
     With this daytime heat and barely-cool evening temperatures, pruning of roses should be as thorough as possible – removing leaves as well – so the plants will be forced to go as dormant as possible, being able to rest a bit before being plunged into another year of producing flowers.
     
2 Comments

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© 2015 Yvonne Savio. All Rights Reserved.                                                                                                                                                         Web Design by StudioMAH.